


Chapter Two: Provide

by i_gaze_at_scully



Series: To Save a Child [2]
Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-09-15 10:09:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16931295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_gaze_at_scully/pseuds/i_gaze_at_scully
Summary: I had to take some liberties with certain scientific technology, technology that is new and incredibly rare today, but was commonplace in the 90s in my AU. I apologize in advance to my science savvy readers and ask for a bit of suspension of disbelief in this chapter in that regard.





	Chapter Two: Provide

**Author's Note:**

> I had to take some liberties with certain scientific technology, technology that is new and incredibly rare today, but was commonplace in the 90s in my AU. I apologize in advance to my science savvy readers and ask for a bit of suspension of disbelief in this chapter in that regard.

HOSPITAL

They speak in frantic whispers between monitor pings and sharp breaths. They need a plan, and they need it yesterday. Scully puts her back to the wall, hunches into the space between her and Mulder with her arms crossed over her chest, her eyes flitting between Emily and the door. They don’t have time to flesh it all out, but when the bare bones are there and their absurd ideas turn into  _just might works_ , he reaches out and squeezes her hand, then leaves to find a doctor.

Mulder hides one vial in his pocket, and Scully, one in hers. She holds the last vial out to the doctor.

“My daughter–” she starts, coughing to clear her throat. “–is in a coma. You’ve already decided there’s nothing you can do for her.”

The doctor straightens his back against the heavy weight on his shoulders. Mulder would pity him, but Atlas himself does not envy Mulder, and Mulder has no pity to spare.

“And you agreed–”

“That was before my partner acquired this solution from Dr. Calderon,” she asserts, and it is not technically a lie.

“Dr. Calderon who snuck into the hospital? Whose injections–”

“Yes, whose injections initially appeared beneficial to Emily’s health, but which ultimately failed to slow the growth of the mass that is killing her. It is my belief that Dr. Calderon  _was_  trying to save her life. And that if Emily doesn’t get regular transfusions of this substance,” she heaves, holding out the vial, “she will die.”

The doctor stares dumbfounded at the pair of them and their wild, expectant eyes. “It might hasten her death,” he says finally, with a familiar detachment.

“Not if we continuously treat her,” Scully argues. “Look,” she sighs, dropping her voice. “It’s a hail Mary. I know. But I need you to try. She deserves a chance.”

He stares at the vial in Scully’s outstretched hand and takes it.

“I don’t know anything about this substance, Ms. Scully. Are you sure–”

“Dr. Scully,” Mulder interjects. “She’s a medical doctor, and if she says she’s sure, she’s sure.”

The doctor has no rational argument in this illogical arena, so he thinks with his heart and acquiesces.

They wait. They wait, and they wait. Mulder paces the halls, pops his head in every ten, maybe fifteen seconds, while Scully sits statuesque on the chair in Emily’s room. Mulder’s dying for a pack of sunflower seeds.

He focuses his attention on Scully, watches her hands. They rest on her lap some of the time, occasionally hide in her underarms, but most frequently they lay, one or the other, on her chest. She’s reaching for her cross, but it isn’t there.

He hears it first. The  _ping, beep_  of the vitals machine adds a beat. One little beat. He’s in the door as Scully jumps out of her chair.

When Emily opens her eyes, it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

Scully turns to him and flashes the biggest grin, then pushes him out the door.

“ _Go_ ,” she urges, and he runs straight to his car. He sits behind the wheel and whips out his cell phone, dialing rapidly.

“Mulder?” A frazzled voice answers. “What the hell man, it’s 4:30 in the morning!”

“Frohike I need your help. I need someone I can trust.” He hears grumbles and moans and the fumbling of hands on a nightstand as Frohike rouses himself.

“Hit me,” he sighs.

“I don’t have time to explain, but I need a chemist, a lab tech, anyone who can identify an unknown chemical substance,” Mulder prattles. “I need it reproduced, in large quantities, and fast.”

Frohike pulls through, gives him the name and address of a chemical engineer at the University of California San Diego. About half an hour’s drive from the hospital, no traffic, he says. Mulder checks his watch and groans. 7:37 AM.

“Thanks Frohike, I owe you one.” Before he hangs up, he hears Frohike grumble, “You owe me six hours of sleep,” and a click.

It seems like the entire state of California is on the highway, the entire state headed for the same vital chemical engineer. Toward the one person who will make or break this plan, will save or damn Emily’s life. Mulder drums his fingers on the console and tries, tries to keep his palm off the horn. He runs his fingers through his hair, turns the radio up.

He needs to go but the world won’t let him and suddenly, he is confronted by a can’t that cracks his armor. His mind warps itself through the slit, molds itself into the plane of self doubt and second guessing.

_What will this mean, saving Emily? Is this the end of the x files? Is this the end of the line?_

When he’s running, screaming, pushing, fighting, there is no room for thoughts like these. But here, in bumper to bumper rush hour traffic on a California state artery, they grip him like his white knuckled hands grip the wheel.

He joins the cacophony of tortured morning souls and lays on his horn.

 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO

He barrels through a building with far too many glass walls to keep the secrets he carries. He finds the office of one Todd Benning, has his hand on the doorknob before he remembers to knock. 8:54 AM and he knows he can’t wait another minute. Luckily, he doesn’t have to.

“Hello,” Benning, he assumes, answers, opening the office door. A perfunctory greeting poorly masking a disdainful curiosity. Behind him, stacks of medical journals and magazines litter a desk that is far too large for the space. Graduate degrees hang off centered and at an angle on the wall behind the desk. Mulder catches a whiff of the place and wonders if he’s bringing the lab to the office. The man himself isn’t much different, with a piece of breakfast stuck on his lip and curly, unkempt hair. Catching Mulder staring, he brings his hand to his mouth and dabs the crumb off. “Is there something I can help you with?” He asks, now making no effort to obscure his annoyance.

“Melvin Frohike sent me, told me I could trust you. I need a favor, and it’s a matter of life or death.” Mulder doesn’t make much effort obscuring either, his desperation evident in his tone. He takes the vial out of his pocket. Benning doesn’t seem phased by the lack of pleasantries, his interest solely focused on the green liquid.

“What is this?” He asks flatly, quirking an eyebrow.

“I don’t know,” Mulder admits. “All I know is that it is the only viable treatment for a little girl with a rare blood disorder and I need to know if you can reproduce it, and fast.”  _And if he can’t?_  Mulder wonders. He could go back to the nursing home, pilfer more. If he tried to expose the operation by bringing law enforcement in, the vials would either be gone before they could get a warrant or become evidence. His head swam.  _It has to be reproduced_.

“You can’t tell me anything about it? Nowhere to start?” Benning hasn’t even asked Mulder’s name.

“It came from Prangen Pharmaceuticals and there may be… unusual chemical qualities involved,” he says with as much tact as he can. He doesn’t know anything about this guy, and he can’t risk scaring him off by dropping “extraterrestrial.” Not yet.

Benning nods. “Let me see what I can do,” he agrees, pushing past Mulder into the hallway. “Tell Frohike we’re even.”

Benning is surprisingly speedy for a shorter, heavier man, and Mulder struggles to keep up at a normal pace. Mulder’s watched Scully work in a lab so many times, he’s slightly ashamed at how little he really knows of what goes on in one. Benning tells him to wait outside, that he shouldn’t be long, just needs to run a few quick tests. He puts goggles and gear on and disappears in a bright, chromium room.

Mulder takes his cell phone out. “Scully,” she answers on the first ring.

“Scully, it’s me. How are you? How’s Emily?” He walks the hall, avoiding the windows, and keeps a close eye on the lab door.

“She’s doing well. She’s being monitored and so far she seems to be stable. Anything on your end?” Her voice is tempered, even, belying no doubt, no fear.

“I have a guy working on it. So far nothing, but I just got here.” Talking to her brings his heart rate down and steadies his breathing. He is miles away and wishes he weren’t. “Scully,” he starts solemnly.

“Yes?”

He has nothing. Her name is the only word that captures the whole of all they’re dealing with right now. The pressure, the depth of the emotion. He utters it instinctually.

“It’s going to be okay.” He says it as much for her as he does for himself.

“Mulder, I have to go, the social worker just walked in. Call me back when you know more.” The line disconnects before he can promise her he will.

Benning emerges from the lab, short of his goggles and gear, and looks quite pleased with himself.

“So?” Mulder asks insistently. “Do you know what it is? Can you make more of it?”

“It’s quite spectacular, what you have here,” he says. “It appears to have the same cellular structure as hematopoietic stem cells, or bone marrow cells. But it diverges in one very crucial way from normal stem cells: the cells seem to regenerate at nearly twenty times the normal rate. They also die much more quickly.” He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and nods his appreciation. “It’s astounding.”

They were right then, that Emily needed transfusions. He knows she was being treated for anemia at Prangen. Mulder’s mind races as he tries to understand.

“Bone marrow produces red blood cells right?” Mulder asks, and Benning nods. “Could this be used to treat anemia?”

“Theoretically… but the makeup doesn’t seem compatible with any blood type I’m aware of.” Somewhere down the hall, a door opens and Mulder realizes they’re not alone. Two students walk towards them, laughing and talking, lifting a hand to wave at Benning as they pass. Mulder drops his voice to a whisper.

“Whatever this is, it’s the only thing keeping this little girl alive. We don’t have much left, and she’s going to die without it.” Benning’s face clouds over.

“I don’t know whether Prangen has a patent on this substance, Mr….” he trails off, finally realizing he never got Mulder’s name.

“Mulder.”

“Mr. Mulder. I can’t legally reproduce it if they do.”

“But it can be reproduced?” Mulder asks. Benning hesitates, bringing his hand to his chin and sighing deeply.

“Yes. The process would be almost identical to somatic cell nuclear transfer. I would just need the sample you’ve given me and 48 hours.” His frank honesty reminds Mulder, not for the first time today, of Scully. He remembers his fit of rage at Prangen, shoving his gun in Calderon’s face when he refused to cooperate. He fingers twitch at the memory, but he has more control now. He’ll catch more flies with honey, he knows.

“Listen. I know you know Frohike, so I’m sure you’re used to blurred legal lines. No one will ever know where it came from. And if it’s easy enough to replicate, I can go to another lab later. But I need this now. She needs it now,” he implores.

Benning has no poker face, Mulder quickly realizes, and so he watches the deliberation process happen plainly. He watches Benning screw up his face and look at the ceiling while he runs a mental cost benefit analysis. Mulder sees him scratch his neck when he leans towards refusal, his mouth opening slightly in preemptive apology, but then his mouth closes. He takes one big breath and exhales it loudly.

“All right,” he concedes. “Tell Frohike he owes me, now.”

—

“Pick up, pick up,” Mulder urges Scully under his breath, miles away and fit to burst with a tentative hope he can only begin to grasp. The phone rings and rings and he is about to disconnect the call when she picks up.

“Mulder?” She answers, her voice low and muddled.

“Scully, is everything okay?” She pauses and he listens for signs of distress, listens deeply into the silence. “Scully?”

“I’m fine,” she insists. “Just tired. I think I fell asleep, but I’m up. Did you learn anything more?”

“Yeah and I bet it’s going to make a hell of a lot more sense to you than it does to me. I’ll have more of this thing in two days. Do you think…”  _Do you think she make it that long?_  He doesn’t finish.

“I think we have enough for two days. She’s awake. She’s weak, and she’s afraid,” Scully says, emotion cracking through her voice, “but she still seems stable.” He nods to himself, a repetitive, affirming motion. Scully lowers her voice to barely above a whisper. “But what about Calderon, Mulder? What about the nursing home, and those women, and everything you saw?”

“We’ll deal with that later,” he tells her. “What did the social worker say?”

“The court is still concerned about my involvement with Emily’s care, but they haven’t made their decision yet.”

“I’m on my way back. Hang tight, I’ll tell you more when I get there.” The silence on the line is fraught with all that lays ahead, the long road that stretches before them. “It’s going to okay,” he repeats, with more conviction than before. “I know it.”

And for the first time since boarding the plane to California, Mulder allows himself to believe.


End file.
